Georgeous

On 5/15/2019 at 10:05 AM, Roger said:

This cracks me up

why Roger?

Back when i bought my system from china they tried to sell me a similar chiller, but i did not understand the tech drawing they sent me, i guess i do know. they sent it to me in chinese and cold not envision it. i guess this is the standard. i am attaching drawing they sent me back then

2管道换热器（2019.05.pdf

i think a much more efficient design would be a 2" inner tube and a 4" outer shell ran in counterflow. You would have twice the cooling passing through. However this would be a shit load more expensive. 

so how do you use one of these tube in tube systems? i assume you go from bottom drain of mash tun to pump to chiller then back in to mash tun until desired temperature is reached?

14 hours ago, Southernhighlander said:

GeorgeousThis is what I wrote:  The inner tube is for wort or mash and the space between the outer and inner tube (the shell) is for coolant.  The coolant flows counterflow to the wort or mash." 

Saying that the mash goes through the large side or small side would not be something that I would say because that statement does not adequately explain how it works.  In fact it is very confusing.  There is a tube side and a shell side.  Those are the only sides.  The shell side is a much smaller space by volume.  The tube side is a smaller diameter but contains more space by volume, therefore saying that the mash goes through the small side or large side is meaningless.  Do you follow now?

 

ok just saw this. i guess this answers my questions. so with less space per volume on the shell that is different then what i am use too with counter flow chillers. like i wrote prior in beer brewing a 3/8" copper tubing went through a 3/4" garden hose. over twice as much cooling passed then wort via 20 feet of copper and garden hose this would instantly drop the temp from boil 212°F to ground water + - 2°F

On 5/12/2019 at 10:54 AM, Southernhighlander said:

The inner tube is for wort or mash and the space between the outer and inner tube (the shell) is for coolant.  The coolant flows counterflow to the wort or mash.  This is the way that Silk explained it: "

"Coolant on the shell side, the small opening that's perpendicular."

"The wort or mash to be cooled goes through the large opening."

 That is a very strait forward explanation, but I think that you misunderstood him somehow.  Either that or I am missing something. 

There is a little over 40 ft of 2" inner tube in the current model.

Paul, I was not trying to offend you or accuse you,  above you wrote that the inner tube is for wort or mash. i assume the inner tube is the small tube. maybe we are talking symantecs

see illustration for my understanding from using these for chilling my home brewed beer. the inner tube aka the small tube wort or mash goes in hot comes out cold 

the outer tube the shell cold water enters cold in opposite direction surrounding inner tube and comes hot

I just don't understand the pictures i see of yours. looks like there is a perforated plate with holes in where the wort goes in

questions

1. tube where mash goes in what in diameter of tube? i think you wrote 2inches above

2. tube or shell where chilled water or glycol goes through, what is diameter? 

3. this tube or shell does it completely surround inner tube as in attached diagram

4. how many total feet of piping is does the mash pass through; you answered 40ft 

5. i see that mash attaches via tri clover sanitary fitting, how does the chilling water attach via the perpendicular inlets?

23 hours ago, Southernhighlander said:

 

paul, 

you wrote wort or mash goes through small side 

Silk wrote it goes through large side

which is correct?

1 minute ago, Silk City Distillers said:

Solids in a grain mash can plug, we are talking about grain-in mash, not wort.

right i understand, but in that case i would think 1.5 inner for grain in mash and 2" or bigger for cooling. but on these are they run in counter flow so grain in mash goes from top down or vice versa and cooling water come in the opposite direction?

24 minutes ago, Silk City Distillers said:

Coolant on the shell side, the small opening that's perpendicular.

The wort or mash to be cooled goes through the large opening.

If you chase with water, you'll have very low losses, and cleanup will be much easier.

Product goes through the cooler like going up or down a staircase, the cooling sections are only on the straight sections.

This type of cooler was made popular by the dairy industry, because it is a highly sanitary design that allows for inspection and breakdown.

 

Back in my homebrewing days i built a tube in tube chiller by placing 20feet of 3/8 copper tubing inside 20 ft of 3/4" garden hose and coiled around a round a cornelius keg. The wort passed through the innner copper tubing in one direction and the cooling water through the larger garden hose in opposite direction. This allowed more than double the amount of cooling to wort  ration in a counter flow. It was very efficient. this is what grainfather includes with all their systems today. That is why i am confused why in why the big tube is for wort in the above chiller

On 5/10/2019 at 12:27 PM, Southernhighlander said:

Georgeous,

Our tube in tube heat exchanger is less than $3,300.00 It will crash cool 300 gallons of mash in 30 minutes.  Please see the picture below.  Our is one of the heaviest built in the industry and I would be shocked if anyone can offer you a better price apples to apples.  We have them in stock.  417-778-6100 paul@distillery-equipment.com

 

Paul, 

i am confused a bit by this photo and not sure of its mechanics. Is the small tube for the wort and the large for the cooling of vice versa. Also how much wort gets lost in chiller? Also how many feet of chilling is this?

tube in shell seems to be the standard for grain in, how do you determine how many feet you need?

Our mash tun was designed to use the jackets for steam or chilling water. We do this via bypass valves. It works good, we pump water from our chilled water tank in to jacket. I see a lot of distilleries selling plate chillers they dont need. But with grain going in to fermenter i would think plate chillers would not work. i am sure if you have a false bottom and do grain only no corn as they do in beer making plate chiller is fine but not for bourbon making. So what do you use / recommend? 

I have not made a rye whiskey yet but it is in the pipeline. i have though made many rye beers both commercially and homebrew. When making beers we mash all grains at 147° to 152°F max for maximum starch conversion to sugar. Any higher you release non fermentable sugars. So when geletanizing how do you keep from releasing non fermentable sugars at these high temps? 

2 hours ago, glisade said:

I see, thanks for the update. A smaller still would be ideal to practice with dephlegmator operation but overall it's pretty straight-forward. I could send you some info on basic deph operation if you'd like.

sure absolutely, like i mentioned before our small system was 50 gallons with a thumper. This new system is 600 gallons with a 5 plate column after the whiskey helmet. So a bit of a learning curve but we are getting it. We got our mash and fermentation down packed now we need to get the fun part down

thanks Glisade

On 3/30/2019 at 9:20 AM, glisade said:

I'm not sure I understand the point of using plates without using the dephlegmator. You are creating some passive reflux with the plates but it's not controllable and you can't really do any sort of heads compression. Also, why would you add water to reduce wash proof but then add passive plate reflux to increase the output proof; couldn't you have not diluted your wash and then ran your still as a pot still and gotten a similar outcome?

well we needed to have at least 50% volume in pot so that is reason for dilution. Yes i probably did not need to use the column but just wanted to try it out. I am still needing to learn how to use a deflag. 

well we added it back to the still along with about 30 gallons from another batch topped it with water to bring volume up to 400 gallons. Pulled a sample and tested with my Snap51 and it was 17.87%ABV distilled it using two plates and no deflag for refluxing. and pulled off about 5.25 gallons of foreshots and heads stopped collecting at 80 proof. We ended up collecting 490lbs / 64 gallons of 118 proof sparkling and crystal clear. 
Question, how many of you actually use deflag for making bourbon?

well, when i got in to this i was looking at Corson. i started looking in early 2017. I saw no warning flags here or anywhere i really liked the look of their equipment and they were one of the only ones i found that had agitators in their fermenters as standard equipment. It was Kris Bohn at that time from Still Austin that warned me about them and his experiences with them. So i started digging deeper  and asking alot of questions. Finally tory corson called me and wanted to secure a deal. By that time i was too leary to go with them. Thank goodness. Jake i am sorry what you are going through. i notice their site is down. hopefully you will get something out of this

2 minutes ago, Roger said:

On 2 of my stills, my deflegs can be run empty or, 3" of fill, 8" of fill, or 12" of fill. All return different proofs.

 

i have no idea how to do this. my dephlegmator is stainless and has an inlet and a return. 

2 hours ago, Roger said:

I havent seen mention of the defleg. Running it at different heights, if controllable, and the temp going into it as determined by the temp you set coming out of your condenser, will affect your plate operation.

 

Roger, what do you mean by running the dephlegmator at different heights? 

I ended up using Leracid from Loffler chemicals that's where we buy our caustic sanitizers and cleaners for our Distillery. it is used to clean the inside of copper stills I literally wipe this on and rinsed it off it is amazing it did not polish but it just totally took off all the tarnish in seconds

So again let me post the only question I still have remaining when I re-distill this and I decide I only want to use one two or three plates do I turn them off from the top down or the bottom up?

37 minutes ago, Roger said:

Here's a thought. Run a previously stripped batch with one plate and take it down to 134 proof, then put it away for 4 years at 120p in # 3char. Then run another batch with 2 plates, take it down to 142 and put away at 110 proof  in a #4 char. Then the next day run with 3 plates.............

Then next week run a single pass group with all the plates but only go down to 147p and put a #2 barrel barrel away at 120, then the next day run a barrel not so deep into the tails, but only use 4 plates and put that barrel away a 100p

Take notes of all the flavors you come up with, and then you decide what you like. That's how you make Craft Spirits.

Roger, 

it funny you wrote this, it is almost exactly what we discussed this morning internally. We are  going to experiment with the different levels to see what we can do / produce. Ideally we want to distill to 135 p that is the taste profile we targeted with small system and liked the results. 

so again i am coming from thumper to column in my expansion. i watched literally 20+ videos this weekend for column distillation. From home distillers to pros. i seen and read a lot of mixed thoughts like silk city wrote he used to do 45 minutes in the column before turning off the dephlegmator and going to column and thus adjusted his schedule. So i watched a real boring video but really educationally done that basically says it can only rectify so much then will pass to condenser on its own. We have 18" column with 5 plates. going foward will avoid stripping runs and use the column and adjust the plates as needed. So before i charge my still with water and my low wines, my questions:

1. how many plates to use knowing i am starting with 100 gallons of 37.7% + 200 gallons of water

2. which plates to turn off if using 2 plates, the three from the top of column or the three from the bottom?

3. How long to rectify, or just let it go?

Thank you all for your responses. i read every word and am keeping a journal of process

hopefully one day we will be the ones paying it foward to new distillers graduating to big systems

1 minute ago, Silk City Distillers said:

A single pass run on 5 plates is likely to be over 160 proof, unless you have very inefficient plates - for your first single pass run, consider using 4 to start, and if necessary, dropping to 3.

i was planning to do 2 plates maybe 3 but the ones i bypass should they be at top of column or at bottom? i am wrestling with the logic as vapor rises

17 hours ago, captnKB said:

We collect down to 20 proof 10% ABV on a stripping run. There is a good bit of useable alcohol and good flavor in those tails and to leave them in your wash after a stripping run is to throw away good alcohol.

well that was our idea, stripping run collect to 20%ABV with no cuts as a stripping run should be. But i didnt take in to consideration or calculate correctly what i would end up with and now it is not enough to fill my big ass still. so i will have to take my 100 gallons of low wines and charge with 200 gallons of water and redistill this time as a spirit run low and slow making cuts. Question now is how many plates to use? If i use all five on my column i will likely strip off all flavor. So will start with 2 plates and see how it goes. But here is what i am not sure. Do i turn off the three plates from the top  of column or bottom for this?